Apropos to what Gerry and some others have said, I thought most ham type
watt meters had two factors that made it difficult to know if one's
power output is up to spec:
1) Typical meters have up to 10% tolerance - meaning up to 10% +/-
accuracy. That makes it almost impossible to know what you have, really.
2) The Gordon West Extra Class license course makes a point of
explaining why one wants a PEP power reading meter - and then goes on to
explain why even that does not always show the real total power out -
especially on SSB - but even on CW - and explains that while close,
there are various technical reasons (yeah... like I can relate and
recall them accurately enough now...) that makes it show less than the
actual power out. Similarly, but in contrast, for example, some rigs
have a surge on first transmit, that might over-state actual power over
time, but a PEP reading meter with a slow decay rate (peak-hold) may
overstate the power out. Thus, our meters do not really give us the
actual power out. I can look up the reasons Gordo gives us for this
discrepancy if anyone is interested...
Thus, we may be getting all the wattage we paid for after all... even
though we cannot prove it ! And I am totally sympathetic for anyone
who is skeptical or who has reason to doubt his actual power - as it
would be nice to know for sure since this stuff costs so much. One
should not need a dynamometer to know if his car meters are right - and
neither should we as hams with our radios. So, while think things are
better than we might think, it would be nice to be able to verify it
all.
Just my take.
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Happy Trails.
======================= Richards / K8JHR =========================
On 4/1/2011 6:20 PM, Steve Berg wrote:
. There would normally be at least 10
watts difference between the lowest reading bench and the highest
reading one.
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